On his first night renting a cottage on the Cornish coast, widower John Tennant comes face to face with, of all things, a grizzly bear. Fearing for his life, John tries to convince the animal he isn't worth eating, and is relieved when the bear ambles away. Maintenance man Mitch Benjamin is two hundred years old but doesn’t look a day over forty. As a werebear, he needs to stay under the radar. The new renter is making that difficult. Not only is John attractive, but his vulnerability triggers all of Mitch’s protective instincts. If that wasn’t trouble enough, Mitch is struggling with his inner bear’s desire to befriend John. He knows what his bear is up to, but Mitch doesn’t want another mate. His last one was murdered ninety years ago, and he’s still grieving. John is confused by Mitch’s mixed signals. Physically, Mitch -- with his bulging muscles and hulking frame -- is a gay man’s wet dream come true. But emotionally, he keeps closing down. John discovers more comfort with the magnificent grizzly bear he occasionally meets on his evening walks along the beach. In an effort to help, Morwenna, the owner of the cottages, uses her psychic gifts to give John a message from his dead lover, George. Far from helping, it adds another layer of strangeness to what’s already turning out to be the strangest summer John can remember. Can a well-meaning medium and a determined grizzly bring John and Mitch together? Will Mitch come clean about his werebear nature? If he does, can John accept that a man and bear exist in the same body?

Summer's Lease

In an effort to distract himself, John looked around Mitch’s living room. It was comfortable and masculine: sturdy leather sofa and easy chair, dark stained wooden floor, colourful scatter rugs that John believed to be Native American, heavy wooden coffee table. John wondered if Mitch had made it.


“Here we go,” Mitch said, coming back into the room, a large canvas bag in each hand. “Sorry there’s so much. Didn’t get a chance to do laundry last week.”


“I’ll take them to the car for you.”


“I’m not completely helpless,” John snapped. He was instantly contrite when he saw the hurt expression on Mitch’s face. “Sorry, that was uncalled for.”


John knew Mitch was the type of guy who naturally assumed command, using his size and superior strength to protect rather than dominate. It was a trait he was trying not to allow himself to appreciate.


Chapter 36